Subject: Re: new.net (was: Root Server DDoS Attack: What The Media Did Not Tell You)

From: "Michael Froomkin - U.Miami School of Law" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 1 Dec 2002 22:12:59 -0500 (EST)

Competition for registry services is quite likely to lower prices if they
get to pick their own TLD strings and policies.

Look how much prices went down due to registrar competition.

On Fri, 29 Nov 2002, Keith Moore wrote:

> > First target: twice as many as now.
> 
> why?  how will that improve life on the internet?
> 
> 

-- 
		Please visit http://www.icannwatch.org
A. Michael Froomkin   |    Professor of Law    |   [email-masked]
U. Miami School of Law, P.O. Box 248087, Coral Gables, FL 33124 USA
+1 (305) 284-4285  |  +1 (305) 284-6506 (fax)  |  http://www.law.tm
                        -->It's warm here.<--

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 01 Dec 2002 22:24:40 -0500

> get to pick their own TLD strings and policies.

the cost of maintaining a domain name is already insignificant.
what I am interested in is having the DNS work well.

---

From: Marc Schneiders <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2002 16:57:20 +0100 (CET)

> why?  how will that improve life on the internet?

It would make long domain names of the type
domainnamebargainscheaper.com obsolete. Using domains will become
easier. Less load on nameservers (incl. tld servers) because of
typo's. That is just on a practical level. Other improvements
(probably off topic here) include lower prices, breaking of a cartel.

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 02 Dec 2002 12:00:11 -0500

On Sat, 30 Nov 2002 16:57:20 +0100, Marc Schneiders said:

> domainnamebargainscheaper.com obsolete.

Why? unless you manage to get 'cheaper.' as a TLD, and create the name
as domain.name.bargains.cheaper. - or am I missing something?

>                                           Using domains will become
> easier.

Empirical evidence indicates the biggest problem is finding the 1 out of 41M
.com domains and avoiding all the typosquatters...

>         Less load on nameservers (incl. tld servers) because of
> typo's. 

See the NANOG url I posted yesterday - 98% of the TLD load is borked, and
nothing we do about this will address the issues (in fact, if anything, the
traffic for that part of the 98% due to non-caching will increase).

>         That is just on a practical level. Other improvements

Notice that you don't get the lower prices and cartel breaking by increasing
the number of domains, you get it by increasing the number of registrars.

-- 
				Valdis Kletnieks
				Computer Systems Senior Engineer
				Virginia Tech

---

From: Vernon Schryver <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 2 Dec 2002 10:36:52 -0700 (MST)

> From: [email-masked]

And what's wrong with DomainNameBargainsCheaper.com or
domain-name-bargains-cheaper.com?  
How would replacing '-' with '.' affect anything?

I've noticed an odd thing while draining my spam traps.  When I see an
advertised domain name that consists of two or concatenated more English
words, it's usually Oriental.  I don't mean necessarily hosted in Asia
but with non-ASCII content.  It's as if Oriental spammers are smarter
about creating memorable English domain names and avoiding the squatters.

> .com domains and avoiding all the typosquatters...

and neither of those has anything to do with the last 4 characters of the
name.

Vernon Schryver    [email-masked]

---

From: Måns Nilsson <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 02 Dec 2002 18:53:08 +0100

> why?  how will that improve life on the internet?

Basically, it will take some of the exclusiveness out of the TLD concept.
That is a good thing for peace and quiet on several mailing lists and on
the Internet name debate in general. 
I hope it would shut the nutcases arguing about new TLDs up, because they
have been given what they so hotly desire (why escapes me, but I suppose
they believe they'll make a big bag of money selling domain names. Good
luck.) 

Technically, it is no problem to keep 500 delegations in sync -- even with
higher demands on correctness than are made today, both for the root and
most TLDs. 

However, there can only be one root. That is not up for discussion. (in
case somebody thought I think so.)
- -- 
Måns Nilsson    http://vvv.besserwisser.org

---

From: Joe Baptista <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 2 Dec 2002 12:55:11 -0500 (EST)

> the number of domains, you get it by increasing the number of registrars.

I disagree.  The current arrangement of increasing registrars looks alot
like a multi level marketing scam.  Basically the goal is to squeeze every
penny out of the dot.com universe.  It' don't wash.

Users want *.choice in their tlds.  The whole idea behind tlds are to
establish simple nameing conventions which give users of domains
an internet precense.  unfortunately there's not much choice in the
existing USG root infrastructure.  Users are by their nature creative when
it comes to naming concervtions and i'm sure they would have more fun in
the alt.universes then they do in the USG system.  Unfortunately the USG
is not very creative in this regard.

regards
joe

---

From: "Michael Froomkin - U.Miami School of Law" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 2 Dec 2002 13:44:04 -0500 (EST)

I dispute the accuracy of this assertion below (unless "registrars" is a
typo for "registries" in which case we agree totally and you can ignore
what follows):

> the number of domains, you get it by increasing the number of registrars.

Please explain your reasoning.  In particular, note whether you consider
registrars and registries to be separate vertical markets.  If so, please
explain how competition in a downstream market affects prices upstream.

Also, please note the vital distinction between "number of domains" (which
I agree increasing does not increase competition if the number of registry
operators remains constant) and "number of registry operators" (which I
submit *will* increase competition if this increases as the number of
domains increases -- at least if the new operators are allowed to pick
their character string and given substantial freedom to set their policies
as opposed to the ICANN model of picking strings and setting highly
restrictive policies to discourage wide use [e.g. ".coop"]).

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 02 Dec 2002 13:55:53 -0500

> typo for "registries" in which case we agree totally and you can ignore

I meant registries, and we *are* in agreement. ;)

---

From: "Stephen Sprunk" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 2 Dec 2002 15:57:05 -0600

Thus spake "Joe Baptista" <[email-masked]>
> is not very creative in this regard.

I'm not sure it's been demonstrated anyone other than the _registrars_
actually want more gTLD's.  biz and info have been up for quite a while and
I can only think of one web site I've been to in either of them.  Despite
the heated arguments and bureaucratic infighting, demand simply hasn't
materialized when we increased supply.

End users expect everything to be in .com, period (no pun intended).  I
still get multi-year Internet users (admittedly of the AOL variety) who
don't believe my personal email address in .org is real -- they've never
noticed anything but .com and .net out there, and they're confused enough
about the minor difference between those two.  They don't need another few
thousand TLDs.

S

---

From: Vernon Schryver <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 2 Dec 2002 15:55:59 -0700 (MST)

> From: "Stephen Sprunk" <[email-masked]>

> ...
> I can only think of one web site I've been to in either of them.  ...

I've found that the spam filter of rejecting all mail from .tv, .biz,
.info, .bz, .nu, and .ws has had a 0.0% false positive rate.  There's
not enough of that spam to make this filter exciting, but it is distinctly
useful.  Those domains are actively marketed to spammers or sound cool
to spammers and other incompetent sales people.

Of course, you're mileage may vary, especially if you have a legitimate
domain in one of those TLDs.

---

From: jfcm <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 03 Dec 2002 01:44:57 +0100

>about the minor difference between those two.  They don't need another few

Dear Stephen,
initially every name was .arpa. Why did they not stick to it :-)

Let say that you have stephen.sprunk.org and the people you quote are lost 
(what is correct as people see no reason why not to resolve Stephen Sprunk 
in their mind as stephen.sprunk.com in the Internet, from what they 
understand).

Would they be lost the same with stephen.sprunk.org.com ? I guess not.

Now, if someone comes and tell them that stephen.sprunk.org is just an 
abreviation of stephen.sprunk.org.com, you know what they will ask? They 
will as why stephen.sprunk is not an abreviation of stephen.sprunk.org. And 
they will never believe him if he tells them this is not possible  because 
of a program written in 1983 and a forgotten agreement of 1984.

As if I told someone he cannot have 10 digit telephone numbers because of 
the way mechanichal telephone switchers worked in the 60s.

I would advise we do not to confuse too much the trust of the people with 
them being dumb. ICANN just does that too many times.
jfc

---

From: "Eric A. Hall" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 03 Dec 2002 03:26:15 -0600

> case somebody thought I think so.)

This is also my position entirely.

-- 
Eric A. Hall                                        http://www.ehsco.com/
Internet Core Protocols          http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/coreprot/

---

From: Marc Schneiders <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 2 Dec 2002 21:47:32 +0100 (CET)

> How would replacing '-' with '.' affect anything?

It would mean you were dependent on the enduring goodwill of the
registrant of cheaper.com to delegate the subdomain to you.

> about creating memorable English domain names and avoiding the squatters.

My observations give a different impression. People from Asia (esp.
Korea) register any two or three word .com domain that expires,
because a speculator is no longer willing to put money into it. I
would say it proves that they are good scripters.

> and neither of those has anything to do with the last 4 characters of the

Well, if there is .shop, .bargain, .free, .web in addition to .biz and
.com, more people can just do business from NAME.TLD and do not have
to go for NAME-corp.TLD, NAME-easy.TLD, NAME-bargain.TLD etc. Try the
following on some dull party perhaps? Test which of the two following
sets can more easily be memorized:

domainbargain.com
domainnamebargain.com
namebargain.com
easydomain.com
easydomains.com

domain.bargain
domain.shop
domain.biz
domain.easy
domain.reg
domains.com (this one to make it not too easy)

-- 
[01] All ideas are vintage not new or perfect.
http://logoff.org/

---

From: "Stephen Sprunk" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 3 Dec 2002 13:42:43 -0600

Thus spake "Einar Stefferud" <[email-masked]>
> In case you have not noticed, one possible solution is to eliminate all
> TLDs other than .COM, which is the only one that you say so may people
> believe exists.
>
> At which point someone will notice that all addresses have a
> redundant .COM (because all the other TLDs have been removed, and
> so the browsers and mail systems will offer to append (or just assume)
> the redundant .COM suffix for you, and voile!...

No, keep the ccTLDs and let each country do with them as they wish.  Most
countries have a hierarchical namespace within their ccTLD, though a few are
flat.

Either way, I'll take 250+ flat namespaces (ccTLDs) over one flat namespace
(the root).

COM is a failed experiment and needs to be closed and/or eliminated.

> All all solved for the minor cost of forcing all non .COM domain name
> owners to find and register a new non-colliding domain name under
> .COM!

While international trademark law is a joke at best, each country does have
a framework in place which can be used to resolve conflicts within their own
ccTLD.  This is a lot easier than trying to manage a single global namespace
using the WTO's trademark "rules".

S

---

From: Einar Stefferud <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 3 Dec 2002 17:07:35 -0800

Well, I for one am not ready to retreat from a more global view,
with a retreat to essentially balkanizing the Internet Name Space.

I see nothing wrong with having a .IBM or a .AOL, or .MSN, or a .NMA for that matter.  All these companies operate in International Cyberspace in terms of name recognition, and WIPO, in due course, is going to have to yield to market demands, regardless of how long it takes.

To accept WIPO rule and control of global commerce language (and I do believe that DNS is a language which uses names to communicate concepts) is just not going to work, as WIPO is working to harness global control of naming systems in general.  Give then an inch and they will take a mile.

So, I see no point in retrograde suggestions such as your proposal that we all just lie down in our WIPO moulds, let them tighten the screws and turn up the heat, and soon we will all be just fine.

No thank you for your kind offer of supposed comfort;-)...\Stef

---

From: Paul Vixie <[email-masked]>
Date: 04 Dec 2002 18:57:35 +0000

> COM is a failed experiment and needs to be closed and/or eliminated.

i thought i'd already said that.  yes, i did.  in november, 1995.  (ah, lout.)

http://www.vix.com/~vixie/dns-badnames.ps
-- 
Paul Vixie

---

From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 04 Dec 2002 18:54:14 -0800

> From: Paul Vixie <[email-masked]>
                             ^^^^
> i thought i'd already said that.  yes, i did.  in november, 1995.

hmmmm

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 06 Dec 2002 11:46:04 -0500

> > i thought i'd already said that.  yes, i did.  in november, 1995.

It may be a failed experiment, but it's the only game in town. Paul could
use some other TLD, but I suspect he's grown rather attached to the concept
of actually hearing from the rest of us (except for the spammers ;)

---

From: "Bill Cunningham" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 6 Dec 2002 15:53:08 -0500

They have COM+ and COM++ and DCOM now that they are working on, including
this .NET thing.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Randy Bush" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Sent: Wednesday, December 04, 2002 9:54 PM
Subject: Re: new.net (was: Root Server DDoS Attack: What The Media Did Not
Tell You)

---

From: "Tomson \"Yahoo.fr\" Eric" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 7 Dec 2002 00:49:05 +0100

Bill,
I don't think everybody is talking about the same "COM"...

-----Original Message-----
From: Bill Cunningham

They have COM+ and COM++ and DCOM now that they are working on,
including this .NET thing.

>-----Original Message-----
>From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
>It may be a failed experiment, but it's the only game in town.
>Paul could use some other TLD, but I suspect he's grown rather
>attached to the concept of actually hearing from the rest of us
>(except for the spammers ;)

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